


On the Horizon

by bemynewobsession



Series: Fitzwells Scenes [1]
Category: Harlots (TV)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 08:20:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15681597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bemynewobsession/pseuds/bemynewobsession
Summary: The events of Isabella and Charlotte's first meeting as told from Isabella's POV. (Not first person)





	On the Horizon

**Author's Note:**

> I may or may not be starting a small series of Fitzwells ficlets simply of the scenes they share together, just told from Isabella's point of view.

Isabella Fitzwilliam woke up that morning ready to live the day it like she had every other day since her father had died. She would wake up hours before the Beast did as that was how long it took to make sure her hair was perfectly upright and could stay that way for the rest of the day, just how he liked it.

 

She would then eat breakfast, monitored by him of course. They would likely entertain a guest or two of some stature until the night came and the Beast would parade her around like his possession amongst the other Lords and Ladies of London that they were hosting that night.

 

Most of her day, that day, was just like any other. She hadn’t realized though, that that night would change her life forever.

 

“Ms. Charlotte Wells for you.” the doorkeeper announced.

 

_Charlotte Wells?_ She thought to herself. _The infamous CW harlot of London?_ As the thoughts crossed her mind she could not help but sneer out loud and degrade the woman in front of her as would be expected by her peers.

 

As she got a better look at the harlot, she found herself intrigued. Though she may have been wearing a wig and makeup, basic though the get up was, Isabella could tell that Charlotte Wells was a woman who did not even have to try to look beautiful. Something burned inside her at the thought of a woman who was so lovely, so effortlessly.

 

She mistakenly took it for jealousy as her brother invited the whore into the room.

 

“Let me see the beauty that sent, George Holland? To an early grave.” her brother said to the girl, not even bothering to move from where he sat astride their couch. Wells immediately gave her biting retort.

 

“Your business may be slander, Sir, but mine..” she turned her face to look at Isabella and Isabella caught herself before she gasped at the brazen, fiery look she found herself trapped in.

 

“Is with the Lady.” _What? What business did a harlot have with her? Unless it was..._

 

She looked to her brother to see his reaction and then said “Well, I’ll hear it.”

 

Her brother finally deigned that remark worthy to stand for.

 

“Ms. Wells and I will take a turn.” Isabella inclined her head towards the girl then the foyer, indicating that she follow.

 

“What do you want?” she asked the girl in a hushed tone.

 

“My current benefactor, Ms. Quigley, sends me in her hour of need.” The woman in front of her spoke so boldly to her, even putting her hands on her hips in such an unladylike way. But that was not enough to distract her from the name the Wells woman had just spoken.

 

“How dare you? Go.”

 

“Her situation is quite desperate.”  Yes, Isabella would indeed call spending days in a small London jail cell desperate but her heart raced at the thought of having to have Lydia Quigley as a menace in her life again.

 

“Yes I’ve read about it in the Evening Rag. Stench of crime and kidnap.”

 

Wells looked almost a bit guilty when Isabella brought up the reason for Quigley’s jailing. Was she ensnared in the woman’s poisonous dealings or was she feeling wrong for her part in attempt to free this She-Devil?

 

Regardless, Quiqley’s leverage over Isabella was undeniable. She looked to the back room where her brother and other Lords and Ladies continued to drink and chatter and then back to the Wells girl.

 

In an even quieter voice than before, Isabella asked Wells, “How much does she want?”

 

“500 pounds.” Isabella’s jaw dropped open in a gasp before she could stop herself.

 

Wells began to speak again “By tomor-”

 

“My brother holds my purse.” Isabella’s voice was most certainly a desperate whisper now.

 

She locked eyes with Wells and scanned her face to be sure she was serious.

 

“I cannot get it.” Isabella was starting to breathe harder now, since the Wells woman’s next words were,

 

“She’s pressed me to threaten you.” Her lower-class accent was quite evident in those words. Isabella thought to herself for a moment. _Quigley’s girls usually speak in such proper English. Why was this girl different?_

 

It dawned on Isabella what Wellls had said. _Was she aware of the illegitimate child that Quigley had her trapped by? No. The girl hadn’t said anything specific. It had to be something else._

 

“Why?” Isabella spoke plainly. “Does she hold your secret too?”

A somber look passed through Charlotte Well’s eyes before she looked to the ground and spoke quietly, urging Isabella to get the money as she began to walk out of the house.  The familiar look shot through Isabella like a bolt. This girl may be trying to get Quigley out of jail, but she was not a true friend or ally of the She-Devil.

 

Suddenly Isabella knew she needed befriend this woman, this harlot, this ‘brazen strumpet’ as she herself had called her earlier. Charlotte began to walk away and Isabella spoke abruptly to grab her attention.

 

“Perhaps us couriers are not unlike you courtesans.” ‘Courtesan’ was probably the most benign term she could think of to describe what Charlotte’s job was.

 

“Our lives, like yours, are a constant game of sham.” She had gotten Charlotte’s attention with these words. She couldn’t say it outright, but she needed to apologize for the way she had degraded the girl earlier.

 

“You are long to break from that pretense.” Charlotte’s voice was husky with a quiet compassion that Isabella had not heard the likes of in many years.

 

Isabella knew in that moment that this woman, who had she had met not but five minutes ago, was someone she could trust.

 

“If ever I broke free and spoke my heart: the sea would bubble, the sky would turn red, and London would tumble into dust.” She could practically hear her brother now calling her dramatic or hysterical, but the words she spoke were true and she felt she needed Charlotte to hear them.

 

The words seemed to change Charlotte’s demeanor for a moment for her next words were spoken at a lower, more intimate tone.

 

“Is that so? I should like to witness that.” Isabella did not doubt Charlotte for a moment that her response was earnest.

 

“Izzy?” It was her brother. For that barest shared moment with Charlotte, Isabella had forgotten herself. Forgotten where she was. Whose presence she was near.

 

Isabella turned so that Harcourt could not read her lips or see her face.

 

“Say nothing.” She instructed Charlotte in a whisper. “Come to me at breakfast.”

 

Harcourt came to grab her arm and drag her back into the party.

 

As Isabella sat in her room that night undoing her hair and scrubbing the makeup from her face, her thoughts were filled with Charlotte Wells. The woman had intrigued her like no one else had in a long time.

 

As she took her hair down from its upright position and began to brush it, she allowed herself to imagine for a moment, Charlotte in her own place, likely performing a similar action herself to wash away the day from her body.

 

Isabella Fitzwilliam had not felt something akin to hope that there would be a change in her life in many years. Perhaps Charlotte Wells was going to be the one to bring the change to her.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr at artemisodinson.tumblr.com


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